Glen Ellyn officials are changing some parking restrictions in its downtown to free up spaces for customers. (Quan Truong, Chicago Tribune)

For years, officials in Glen Ellyn have been hearing from residents about a lack of parking in the downtown, despite studies showing plenty of spaces available for customers.

Now, the village has plans to shift around parking and make it easier for shoppers to find available spaces in its central business district.

"It dawned upon us that it isn't a lack of parking, but addressing the perception of the lack of parking," Glen Ellyn Police Chief Phil Norton said at a recent village meeting. "We're going to shift our focus and start working on addressing the perception. You can go anywhere and be within a block or a block and a half of convenient parking."

The village board recently approved a number of new measures to help separate commuters from the central business district and encourage employees to keep more on-street parking available for customers.

The changes include creating 12 "Customer Only" parking spots where parking meters were removed in the Main Street and Pennsylvania lot. It also includes making the Union Pacific lot at Crescent and Main customer parking only, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, and making Schock Square customer parking only, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays.

At the Main and Pennsylvania lot, behind the fire station, the village plans to add 10 employee permit spaces and add nine merchant leased spaces, along with reducing the number of commuter permits from 54 to 35 because of a lack of use.

The new Duane and Glenwood parking facility, which offers 45 spaces as commuter parking, also will be used as customer parking after 6 p.m.

With the changes, there will be 91 new spaces for customers and the number of downtown parking spaces will grow to about 1169, which does not include on-street parking, village officials said.

The village board unanimously approved the changes at a November meeting.

"Ninety-one new spaces for customers is no small feat so we're excited about that," Village Manager Mark Franz said at the meeting. "We want to get the word out and identify parking areas that people have thought off-limits to them for years. We think we made a good start here at making some important changes."

Glen Ellyn is not the only community battling parking concerns.

In Wheaton, parking was one of the issues addressed in the final draft of a downtown strategic plan and streetscape plan recently released by the city's consultants. A parking analysis shows there is enough parking in the city's downtown, despite a perceived parking issue reported by residents who participated in the survey, officials said.

In the plan, consultants recommended the city consider adding differentiated time limits on certain spaces such as 15 minutes, 1 hour and two hours. That will encourage employees to park in other areas and free up spaces for customers, consultants said.

"The idea there is to look at different tenants and try to tailor different time limits for different uses. That would have to be periodically changed," said Britt Palmberg, project manager for Design Workshop, during a presentation with council members. "There could be a steering committee or parking committee to help the city going forward."

The plan also suggested the city look into modifying parking regulations south of the railroad tracks to encourage shared parking and consider a new parking garage. The final draft of the plan is still being considered by the council and will go to a public hearing in the near future.

Meanwhile, officials in Glen Ellyn are hopeful the new parking changes will show residents how easy it is to park in the village's downtown, especially as the holiday shopping season nears.

"We know that the parking program in Glen Ellyn's downtown is like a living organism. You push it on one end, there's a reaction on the other end, but we think this is a good step toward fixing some of that perception," Norton said.